Big tench and the early worm.

I have been up well before 4:00am over the last two days in order to get the early worm [ they look like tench where I search ], it seems that the fish have all but stop feeding by 9:00am and with the sun beating down I don’t blame them.  The longer I fish the more I’m convinced we know nothing about fish behaviour, why they have changed from feeding all day, even if it was spasmodically, to this almost black and white situation is an unknown factor, at least to me it is.

 

                                             The dawn just tinges the trees opposite with colour.

                                          A nesting Oyster Catches looking for the eary worm

 

The water was coloured about a month ago, it went total clear and now it is coloured again, probably a brown algae.  As mentioned in the last blog the insect life is prolific but very few fish are seen on the surface, even that dawn activity seems to be missing.  All that aside I did manage four fish on both days before they shut off.  Each day it was two 6lb plus fish and other two in the 5lb and 4lb range.  Pleasing fish to catch but I am hoping for a couple of the bigger fish that are there.

                                                  6lb plus tench are always welcome.

I have been trying to compare the results on two different approaches, one of rubber casters fished over a bed of casters and method feed, the other using a corn/pellet combination bait fished again over a bed of corn and method feed both fished with short hook links and a flatbed method feeder.  So far over the very limited sample caught it is five three to the caster being on top.  Effectively that is only one fish difference since if one of the five caster caught fish had been on corn the totals would be even and I must note that corn and pellet is a lot less expensive than casters and when not used they keep better as well.

Spring means specimen tench and crucians.

Spring is a great time for the serious specimen fisherman and although it arrived late this year it did come and the big fish have come with it.  As a general rule we measure our success by the weight of the fish we catch and the location the fish is caught from, I’m lucky in that I can afford both the time and the money to travel to distant places others have to fish locally and hence catch mostly smaller sizes of fish.  It is an undeniable fact that to succeed in catching specimen size species across the range to need to travel.  Lots of anglers are fortunate in that they live near to venues that hold big fish but even these will need to travel since it is unlikely that there are more than two or three of the species locally that are of specimen size.  Of course living in the south of the country gives the angler a big advantage over those in the north both in the general size of fish available and the number of venues holding each of the different species.  That is not to say that they are not available in the north but there will certainly be less of them. 

If I could move to say the western end of Kent or into the Colne valley area, the Kennet region or the Ringwood area it would be perfect.  All these would reduce my need to travel and put venues with specimen fish local to me that I could fish for a few hours in the evening without breaking the bank to get there.  I would still need to travel since many of my chosen venues would lie outside those areas, but the difference would be significant.  I now class anything less than 50 miles as local and rarely fish at less than 20miles.  Many anglers never travel more than 15 miles and even at that they feel they have gone a long way, suggest 50 mile to them and they think you have gone mad.  Unfortunately that is how it is so I travelled the 125 miles down to the Johnson’s Lake on the Marsh Farm complex yet again to try for the elusive 4lb crucian that is one of the targets for this year. 

                                                          Spawned out but still 3lb-10oz.

With the late spring it appears the tench fishing is way behind and I think I still have the chance of the very big tench for some weeks.  Unfortunately I’m sure that, one of my crucian catches on the last trip was a repeat capture after spawning, 3lb-5oz the first time and 3lb-1oz the second but that fish had definitely spawned.  This trip was a gamble, we had very nice and sunny weather over the previous weekend, it was almost certain that the fish will have spawned but just maybe one or more of them will still have the weight and will be that little bit behind, I thought it worth a chance.

                                     Willow herb off the trees just begining to cause problems.

 

I arrived to find the bank empty where previously it had been packed out with expectant anglers, there was just one angler on another bank and he seemed to be catching tench, lots of them and they had not spawned.  By now it was about 10:00am and by 11:00am I was in place with rods out fishing ready for the next fifty hours or so although I had already got it in mind that I could pack up early if things were not going right.  I mixed up some method and send out a few Spomb loads to give a feed area for the fish and I did not wait long before the first tench was heading to the net.  Although the venue can do a nice fish of 8lb or 9lb they are very rare and the majority are between 2lb and 5lb, this one was perhaps 5lb and in good shape, not yet ready for the spawning effort soon to come.  Not long after that I got my first crucian and it was spawned out but at 3lb-10oz it left me wondering just how big it had been the previous week.  With the damage on the tail you may recognise it as one of your captures, let me know if it is.

                                                    7lb-3oz tench the best of 17 over the session.

As the day went past the bank filled up with arriving anglers and I continued to catch both tench and crucians to specimen sizes.  By midday on the following day I had quite a catch with a 30 fish total, 17 tench and 13 crucians with five of the crucian over 3lb.  Included in the catch was two tench over 7lb the first of that weight I’ve had from the venue so a pleasing result but still not what I was after.   With the best three crucians at 3lb-10oz, 3lb-9oz and 3lb-6oz they were fish I was very pleased to catch, but they were all spawned out and I felt my chance of the 4lb fish had gone so as strange as some might think I decided to leave and go after the big tench elsewhere.  For me just catching fish is not enough, I need to feel the extra big fish is available and that bit of the equation had gone on this venue for the moment, but I’ll be back in the autumn when they will be back to their normal weight and a 4lb fish is a possible yet again.

                                                        3lb-9oz second largest weight.

                                               The best photo of the crucians and 3lb-6oz.

                                     

Returning home meant I could go to the local tench water, just over 30 miles away, and try for the big tench.  Here ‘big’ means 9lb plus with a very slight chance that if I could catch the right fish on the right day it might be a double, but on the way to that target I could hope for a couple of 7lb or 8lb fish.  It appeared that they had at last turned on and sport seemed a bit more consistent compared to that of late.  I fished for the day and ended with two tench and a bream, none of which went over 5lb but even though I know I would have caught bigger tench at Johnson’s I still enjoyed this session more that I would have there. 

A perfect Spring photo of a medium tench

 

                                         Sunshine brings out hatching fly life in numbers

 

Two things can spoil the enjoyment of fishing for me.  The first is it becoming too easy, the other is where there is no chance of my target fish on that venue.  I have packed up when catching big fish on a number of occasions when it became obvious that I had found the killing method at that time on that venue and the fishing was easy.  I could guarantee the next fish and the one after that, so to me it was no longer sport.  The other point is just my quirk – I want to catch nationally big fish and although I will fish waters where I’m not sure they hold such fish I prefer at least an outside chance that such a fish is present.  Just as an idea I’ll mention some of the weights that I need to feel that there is at least the chance of catching, double figure bream, barbel, and zander, 2lb roach and 3lb perch, 3lb crucian and 20lb pike, 50lb catfish and 30lb sturgeon though I like to think even bigger for this species. I don’t fish for carp but I’m pleased to catch the occasional 20lb specimen on finer gear intended for smaller species.

This blog has rambled a little but I would be interested in your thoughts on what I’ve said, how does it reflect your ideas and fishing?

 

 

Back to the tench.

Having caught a few nice crucians last week and with a bank holiday coming I decided to go to the local tench water which was likely to be less crowded over the weekend.  The tench do seem to be well behind in their development as previously mentioned, even now the reports are that they are very patchy on the local water as to whether you catch a lot or none.  My first day’s effort proved the point where I had a very poor result of just one lost fish to a hook that opened up, while a lad in a nearby swim had ten tench and two bream.  I had run through a large range of hook and hooklink combinations along with bait changes to try and improve tmy catch all to no effect, there were just seemed to be no fish in front of me.

The next day I returned to the lake and although I thought the attendance had been low on the first day with just two other anglers on the water, this time I was alone.   With good weather and a bank holiday – I was amazed at the lack of interest on the bank, you only catch if you go out and even a blank day on the bank is better than sitting in the house watching the telly all day.   Still I had started quite early in the morning and was beginning to think another blank was coming my way when about 10:00am I got two fish at the same time.  Just like busses I waited all that time and the second rod went while I was unhooking the first fish, interesting at least.

                                                 A nice brace of about 4lb+ and 5lb+.

 

I thought I was going to have a few fish following that double capture, but it was a long wait until the next fish came along and then a wait again after that before the next one.  I finished with a pleasing five fish to a best of 6lb-6oz, nothing to set the world on fire but a good session back on the tench scene.

                                                                   The 6lb-6oz old warrior.

 

The tackle in use was similar to that used for the crucians, 1.25lb test 12ft Avon rods, 6lb main line and 4lb braid hook links to size 12 hooks.  The bait was sweetcorn and I used the flatbed feeders to present it along with the usual short hook link allowing the baited hook to be inserted into the mould along with the method feed.

Today it is quite miserable with constant drizzle forecast to be going into dark, even the local ring neck doves have had enough of our so called summer weather and they sit there waiting for the sun to show again.

                        The same as many of us - fed up and waiting for better weather.

 

Crucian tactics and success.

With May approaching fast my thoughts return to these beauties and I hope I can get some of this sport again.  This is last years blog of a successful session.

With this weather pattern that seems to be stuck in the late winter mode the fish would seem to be at least a couple of weeks behind in their development towards spawning, this can be an advantage as long as they will feed and that seems to be the rub.  My local tench water is fishing very patchy, but most of the time poorly, that is the report I get from all over the country, odd good catches and fish, but lots of blanks or low numbers of fish caught.  With this in mind I decided to concentrate on the crucians at Marsh Farm and leave the tench until a later date when they still might have the spawning to complete.

                                                              Home for a few days

                                                                   Baiting up as always

I’ve already given a report of my first trip and since then I’ve returned twice with varied results.  The weekly papers gave a very good report of a couple of great catches made in the recent weeks since the lake opened again on May 1, but don’t be fooled into thinking it’s easy, they were exceptional results.  The fish seem to be in small groups, get a swim with one of these groups in front of you and you can catch half a dozen crucian, but next door on either side of your position could be a total blank.  The tench are prolific and by and large the crucian anglers don’t count them at all since the size range tends to be quite small at between 1lb and 4lb most of the time.  The occasional nicely coloured rudd puts in an appearance and these can run up to around the 2lb mark to make an interesting diversion.

                                                                    Colourful rudd

My return for a second session resulted in just two crucians with another one lost and I was beginning to wonder what I needed to do in order to get a reasonable result, but as with most times when you are not catching it was just a case of getting onto the fish.  These sessions tend to be about of 50hrs duration over three days and for my next try I arrived about 10:30am on the Tuesday and began a walk around to see what was happening so I could choose a swim for the next couple of days.

                                                          Ready for the crucians

One big advantage of staying on the same venue and within a narrow band of end rig change is that the same tackle will be used making starting up again simple.   The rods are still made up and everything is ready to go.  Mix up my feed to go into the swim and a method mix for the feeder, only slightly different since I want one to break up while the other needs to bind on the method feeder.

                                                        One of the hookbait versions.

I, along with many other writers have written thousands of words on rigs for the different species we fish for, that said the one I’m using now will catch nearly species very efficiently and without any complicated tackle needed to construct it.  When looked at the flatbed method feeder is only a slight variation on the helicopter rig used with a swimfeeder, both use a short hook link to place a hook bait next to the feed that goes out into the swim.  If I only had one method I could use this would be it.

As before, the tackle is Drennan 1.25lb test 12ft Avon rods with Shimano 5000RE baitrunner reels loaded with 6lb line.  30grm method feeders and size 14 Kamasan B980 hooks are used with 4 inches of 4lb Fireline braid to make up a killing combination.  My method mix is based on Dynamite Green Lipped Mussel method mix with a few extra bits added and the hookbait will vary from sweetcorn,  6mm soft pellet to artificial casters.

I had arrived to find most swims taken with just one left so it removed the need to choose, sometimes a good thing as I am a firm believer in fate and she certainly looked after me this trip.  The story on the bank was bad, several anglers after the crucians but only two fish caught over the previous thirty hours or more.  Even the tench that are normally such a nuisance were slow with just a few wetting the occasional net.  I was all set for yet another low score with a blank the most likely result.  With the marker float out to give a reference point the Spomb along with the other two fishing rods were marked up for distance using a suitable elasticated thread,  then the feed went out, a mix of groundbait, mixed pellets and corn and I’m ready for fishing.

I cast the two baits out and continued to set up my camp, I always have the rods out first unless it’s raining, I was still doing this when the bobbin rose and I struck into my first fish of the session, a terrific start even if it’s a tench but as it came to the net I could see the flash of gold – it was a crucian.  Not only a crucian but at 3lb-12oz it was my best from this venue beating a 3lb-10oz fish taken on Harris Lake over behind my current position.  Following that my sport continued fairly evenly through to dusk with fish of 3lb-8oz, 3lb-5oz being the better crucians and a number tench to a pleasing 6lb-3oz.  I brought the baits into the edge at either side of my swim once darkness approached, just off the bushes since although the depth is only a couple of feet they do move in to feed on occasions, but not this night and dawn broke without any interruption to my sleep.

                                                 Very pleased with this 3lb-12oz crucian

                                                                          3lb-8oz gem

The following day started well with a couple of early tench but then nothing until 2:30pm when a moderate crucian, at least for this venue, of 2lb-8oz came to my waiting net, sport was on again and it continued through the afternoon into the early evening.  Mostly it was those smaller tench between 2lb and perhaps going up to 5lb but there were enough crucians to keep me on my toes.  I kept a little feed going into the swim using the smaller of the two Spomb to just top up the swim follow ever second fish, it seems reasonable to assume that there are more fish out there than you catch and it needs a little feed around to keep them interested in coming back to the swim.  I say coming back since it does seem they go off on a route march and eventually return when you again catch a few fish before they move away again.  In-between the feeding spells the swim can seem quite dead until they return.

                                                         Yet another 3lb plus specimen.

My total of crucians slowly built up which seemed quite strange since most of the other anglers were struggling for a bite, I’ve been there over the last two trips so they had my sympathy, perhaps their turn next time.  That second night the close in rods did produce with a big 2lb crucian followed at about 11:00pm by a fish that left no doubt that it was not a crucian.  As I played this fish on tackle not intended for the job a friend came up to ask if I fancied a cup of tea, I declined the tea offer but encouraged him to help with netting the fish.  My net was one of the smaller pan nets not intended for this size of fish and when it finally came to the side after much argument it smashed the fork without mercy leaving us to net it by the lad holding the remains of the frame and guiding the fish into the net very carefully.  The carp weighed in at a very pleasing 23lb-6oz and the net was easily repaired with a normal metal spreader block after the remains of the original plastic spreader had been removed.

                                                The net was not up to the carp's size.

                                                                 23lb-6oz hard scrapping bonus.

                                    3:00am and with the setting moon all is well with my world.

The following morning went much the same and by the time I left to beat the M25 traffic I had raised the crucian total to twelve of which seven were over the magical 3lb bench mark.  My trip back home was through some quite nasty weather and it was the prelude for what was to come, I definitely chose the right days to fish but that is part of the equation of success.

                                                                   A very successful session.

A great time with big tench, bream and carp.

I am sure that like me you often leave home and you are going tench fishing,  or maybe perch fishing, perhaps a day after roach or bream, but how often do those plans go astray and you are lead up the garden path by other species than your target fish of the day?

Tuesday and Wednesday of this week were such days for me, I went tench fishing and did indeed catch some very nice specimens but it did not end there.  On the Tuesday it all seemed to be in my favour, got there about 6:00am and dropped into a swim with the wind blowing into my bank.  I had already decided to fish two totally different methods on the two rods I would be using.  The first rod would have a double hook rig with the maggot feeder on it and the usual short hook-link size 12 Pallatrax hook to carry an artificial maggot along with two or three natural maggots as well.  The second hook would have a couple of Dynamite shellfish 8mm boilies attached since I’ve had occasions where the tench have gone really well on that bait.   The second rod would be set up with a flatbed method feeder and the bait would be a single artificial grain of red sweetcorn.   Using these method feeders it is simple to embed the corn into the method ball by placing a layer of the method into the mould and pressing the feeder into it to get a nice compacted bundle.  Now you lay another shallow layer of feed in the mould again and placing the hook bait on top of this layer you compress the feeder into this and you have a slightly larger compact parcel that includes the bait inside it.  A big advantage of this is that it casts like a bullet and cannot tangle; it will also sit on the top of a weed bed to present the bait cleanly to your target fish.

                                                        Method ball with bait inside.

I was soon into the first fish of the day and this proved to be a small male, it is quite annoying to keep getting these little blighters where a 5lb fish is a good size and fights well, but those females are so much bigger.  That came on the method but when I hooked the next fish on the feeder rod I initially thought ‘this is the one.’  Then it kept on going, slipping the clutch like a wild banshee on a rampage and I soon realised I had hooked one of the lakes big carp.  The fish did put up quite a good show and with lots of water to go at it made good use of it, fortunately normal tench tackle is still quite sturdy and as long as I did not run out of line I could eventually land even the biggest of the lakes residence carp though at 21lb-4oz this was well short of that fish.  My silver bream fishing early this year had produced a 20lb plus carp, and now my tench fishing had done the same, best of it is I don’t carp fish, it is the only one out of all our coarse fish that I no longer pursue, even my pb English carp of 37lb came on tench gear with two maggot on a size 14 hook.

                                                                 21lb-4oz common as a bonus.

The carp had taken the white boilies and although I did take a further three tench on the maggot hook with the maggot feeder rod, it was the other set up that saw most of the remaining action.  I had noticed that this rod was casting its bait into an eel grass weed bed and I took care to keep within that area.  Tench after tench came to the bank, a 6lb-15oz fish was beaten by one of 7lb-8oz and then a 7lb-2oz went into the middle of these with the total tench for the day finishing at 8 fish.  That was quite a good day’s result, but it did not end there and in between the tench I took two sizable bream with the best one tipping the scales to 6lb-13oz, not my usual stamp of bream but pleasing never the less.   So with tench, bream and carp all hitting my net whilst on my ‘tench fishing session I realised that no matter what we might think we are fishing for anything can and usually will happen!

                                                                   6lb-15oz specimen.

                                                               7lb-2oz beauty.

                                                             7lb-8oz best of eight tench.

Day two saw me back at the lake to try again for the bigger tench that so far have eluded my efforts.  This time I went with the method feeder on both rods using the red corn as bait since this had proven to be so successful the previous day.  It was the same wind but noticeably warmer, the previous day having been decidedly chilly.  With heavy showers forecast I had put the shelter up and this proved a wise move but the fish seemed to take pleasure at giving a take right at the moment of the heaviest downpour.  Today followed the results of the previous day with both tench and bream coming to the net.  The tench topped out just short of the 7lb mark but the bream went bigger with two samples of 8lb-8oz and 8lb-11oz.   Pleasing fish since the water has not been known to produce double figure bream as of yet and these were spawned out fish capable of hitting that figure with the extra weight the spawn would give, maybe next year will see them do it.

                                                         8lb-8oz spawned out bream.

                                                         My best bream from this venue at 8lb-11oz.

I ended the day with four fish of each species and I left with that bigger tench still on my mind as I thought in those famous words ‘I will be back.’